198 { China’s Quest
to Lenin and Stalin as leader of the world communist movement. Successful
revolutions in Southeast Asia would prove the correctness of Mao’s Thought.
Revolutionary upheaval in Southeast Asia was also linked to revolutionary
advance in China. This was perhaps the decisive factor for Mao. A pow-
erful wave of revolutionary advance around the world, with many of those
advances demonstrating the correctness of Mao Zedong’s revolutionary
strategies and thought, would help mobilize the Chinese people to continue
the revolutionary struggle in China—to defeat revisionism and prevent the
restoration of capitalism. The tyranny of distance limited China’s ability to
fan the flames of revolution in Africa or Latin America. Southeast Asia was
nearby and had, in some cases, deep historic links with China that could be
used to revolutionary advantage.Southeast Asia as a Traditional Chinese Sphere of InfluenceSoutheast Asia was long a traditional area of Chinese influence. Chinese ways
and techniques washed over Southeast Asia—as did those of India from a dif-
ferent direction. A number of Southeast Asian kingdoms found it convenient
for one reason or another to enter into “tributary” relations with the Chinese
emperor. For kingdoms close to China, like Vietnam or Burma, a tributary
relation was often preferable to constant war with China or outright Chinese
annexation. States more distant from China’s borders—Thailand, Cham on
the Mekong delta, or the Moslem rulers of Malacca, Java, or Sulu Island—often
found other reasons to formally subordinate themselves to the emperor of
China, as required by a tributary relation. A tributary relation with China
typically opened the door to lucrative trade opportunities. Symbols of polit-
ical legitimization—a fancy looking writ of office, an accurate calendar, and
Chinese representatives at solemn ceremonies—were often useful. Chinese
concubines, craftsmen, and advisors were appreciated. In certain extreme
situations, a loyal tributary might call on Chinese assistance to repress a re-
bellion, foil or undo a coup, or repel foreign invasion, although those serv-
ices were by no means automatic and depended, among other things, on how
“obedient” the petitioning tributary had been in the past. Episodes of impe-
rial expansion under the Mongol Yuan and during the first decades of the
Ming Dynasty recruited more tributaries.
Commercial links between China and Southeast Asia were strong. A ro-
bust “maritime silk route” linked southeastern Chinese ports to settlements
around the Strait of Malacca, and forged commercial links between these
regions. Chinese tea, silk, porcelain, and lacquerware were avidly sought
in Europe and supported a prosperous trade. The arrival in the seventeenth
century of European ship technology and global trade networks reinforced